May Your Days Be
by nicnac918
Summary: Clark decides that Lex isn't evil anymore and that the two of them should be friends again. Predictably, Lex objects, though he's not doing a very convincing job of of it. Things escalate rather quickly from there.


_Originally posted as part of Clexmas Secret Santa 2015._

 **Author's Note:** josephina_x was very generous with her fic requests, and the full list read something like this:

 **Fic Types:** old school, post-rift fix-it, (restrained) red k, drama, fluff, h/c, action/adventure, romance, any or all of the above ;)

 **Fic Prompts:** Clark goes to Lex for help at Christmas-time (e.g. for help shopping for presents, to hide away because of holiday stress at having Perry White staying over at Martha's invitation, for advice and succor in surviving the holiday season as a bachelor, etc.); Lex goes to Clark for help at Christmas-time (e.g., trying to do Christmas right for Conner, or trying to make a good impression on his estranged half-siblings, or dealing with having to host the Lanes at the mansion for the holidays for some reason); Lexmas fix-it, Superman gets hurt and Lex makes it better; Lex tries to be a 'good dad' to Conner or develop a bond with him

I leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide how many of these I filled/referenced.

* * *

 **December 17** **th**

"I was under the impression this was an emergency," Lex said to Superman. Or maybe it was Clark. The man alien person before him certainly looked like Superman, what with the way he was floating about six inches above the roof of the LexCorp building in full regalia, but the posture and mannerisms and tone of voice and the actual content of his speech all screamed Clark. Really, it was a horrible breach of secret identity etiquette even if Lex and Mercy, the only other person up on the roof with them, were both in the know. Personally, Lex blamed all the time Clark had spent super-heroing before he had developed his Superman identity; that kind of thing as bound to make it difficult to develop a completely separate persona.

"My boss is sleeping with my mom," Clark – after a comment like that Lex was definitely have to go with Clark – said. "Every day of my life is an emergency."

Fair point, but Lex had rather thought the emergency Clark was asking for help with was going to be something more life threatening. Like the moon being knocked out of its orbit and headed straight for them, or a race of lizard people about to rise up from the depths of the Earth and destroy the human race, or maybe Lionel back from beyond the grave yet again – you couldn't keep a total bastard down, it seemed. He definitely had not been expecting Clark wanting to crash at the penthouse for a couple of hours every day to hide away because of the holiday stress of having Perry White staying over at his mother's house.

But then, Lex had probably been being a bit optimistic in those hopes. (Being brought back from the dead had really restored Lex's faith in the inherent goodness of the universe. He was as of yet unconvinced this was a good thing.) You see, a month ago Clark had come to the conclusion that Lex wasn't evil anymore – an insinuation Lex resented because he had never been _evil_ , dammit, just misinformed and misguided or, at worse, morally ambiguous – and thus the two of them should be best friends again. Lex knew this because immediately after coming to this conclusion he had flown straight to the penthouse and had debatably broken in (debatable only in the sense that Clark was willing to debate it as he was of the belief that if Lex really didn't want Clark breaking the locks on the sliding glass door to the terrace, then Lex would have gotten stronger locks installed) to inform Lex of his decision. He seemed largely uninterested in Lex's opinion on the matter and also in all of Lex's recent attempts to do actually evil things in an effort to restore the status quo.

"Fine, it's an emergency, but that doesn't explain why you thought I would be willing to help you."

"Look, normally I wouldn't because our rekindled friendship is still really new," – or nonexistent, rather – "and me asking you for favors is not the best foot to start it out on, but I really don't have any other options. Normally I hang with Chloe, but her mom finally just woke up a week ago, and I don't want to get in the middle of that. I can't ask Jimmy, because it wouldn't be good role model behavior to let him see me hiding in terror from our boss, and Lois would laugh in my face if I asked her, and I really don't have anybody else."

Lex sighed and rubbed the back of his neck; he was starting to get a crick in it from looking up at Clark like that. Clark, seeing the gesture, obligingly lowered himself down until he alighted on the floor. It was that kind of unspoken courtesy from Clark that really infuriated Lex. How was Lex supposed to keep on hating Clark, when Clark insisted on being so considerate and understanding? (Technically, Lex didn't even hate Clark now, he was just angry enough to make it look like hate, but when it came to Clark, Lex had learned to take his victories where he could get them.)

"Don't you have an apartment you could squirrel away in?" Lex pointed out.

"But if what would I say if Mom noticed that I disappeared? 'Sorry, I was hiding in my apartment because your taste in significant others – Dad notwithstanding – is highly questionable.' That would go over well," Clark said with a snort.

"Well here's a thought, you could always just lie," Lex suggested. It was hardly a foreign concept to Clark.

"I can't lie to my mom," Clark said, sounding positively aghast. Coming from Clark, that statement just had to be some sort of irony or other. "No, you've got to let me hang out at the penthouse. That way if she asks, I can just tell her I was at a friend's place."

"We aren't friends." Maybe if Lex just said it enough, it would start to sink in.

"Of course we're friends," Clark replied for all the world like Lex had just told a joke.

"I shot you yesterday." Granted it had only been a lead bullet and Lex was more trying to make a point than anything, but still. "Friends don't shoot each other."

"Remind me to take you paintballing sometime," Clark said, still sounding amused. "You end up getting pretty messy, but you also get to shoot at a bunch of people, so I'd think you'd like it. Plus meteor healing would be really convenient for the bruises."

"Clark. You can't force someone to be friends with you." There's something Lex never thought he'd be saying to Clark. Who would be crazy enough to not want to be friends with someone as amazing and perfect as Clark was? Oh right, Lex would.

Sometimes pride was a bitch.

"I know that," Clark said. "All you can do is stalk them and hope for the best."

Lex felt stricken. He realized in retrospect that some of what he had done back in Smallville could have been construed that way, but at the time he had been trying very hard not to cross that line, or any line really. It was only knowing what he knew know, which he most certainly had not known then, that he could see things that way, and that Clark was claiming to be Lex's friend and then turning around and holding his own lies against Lex was beyond the pale. (And a bit of return to form to be honest, but Clark was supposed to have matured in the last decade.)

"That was a joke," Clark added quickly and dammit, Lex was supposed to have a better poker face than that. Lionel would be so disappointed (not that Lex cared about that either.)

"A joke," Lex said in the driest tone possible.

"Yeah, you know, because you're overzealous and I used to be really sensitive about the whole alien thing and then there was that room that was really hard not to take the wrong way. Sorry, that was probably too soon. Or," Clark amend after seeing the look on Lex's face – again, dammit – "just in bad taste in general."

"I fail to see how any of this is supposed to be helping your case. Which, by the way, you should not take as indication that you actually have any case here."

"Okay, so I know you don't think we're friends again yet." Really? You could have fooled Lex. "But it's Christmas! Even the trench warfare in World War II had a truce for Christmas."

"World War I, and it's not Christmas. It's December seventeenth."

"C'mon, I promise I'll be super quiet, and I'll stay out of your way; you'll never even have to see me if you don't want to. Please, Lex?" Clark's eyes went big and vibrantly green as his features were cast with an expression of pleading desperation.

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

"I don't even want to know you're there. And I swear to God Clark, if you try to leverage this to further your insane friendship agenda…"

"Thank you!" Clark enthused, looking very much like he wanted to hug Lex. Luckily Clark thought the better of that idea, for once in his life, and settled on flashing Lex a brilliant grin. "I'll be by tomorrow. Not that you'll know that I'm there." With that he flew off, presumably back to Mrs. Kent's house in D.C., or possibly to rescue a treed kitten.

"Why do I do this to myself?" Lex said once he was (mostly) certain Clark wouldn't be listening any more.

"Because you have no sense of self-preservation when it comes to Clark Kent?" Mercy suggested.

Right, that. "Then why do you let me do this to me? Isn't protecting me in your job description?"

"I'm your bodyguard, and the only time I foresee need to guard your body from him, I don't think you'd be too happy if I interfered. Besides," Mercy said with a shrug. "I just think you two would make a cute couple."

Dammit. Lex knew he should have never gotten Mercy into slash fanfiction.

* * *

 **December 18** **th**

Having gotten up at three am for conference call to LexCorp's London office, and not gotten to bed until eleven pm the previous evening because of a conference call with the Tokyo office, by two pm Lex was in desperate need of yet another cup of coffee.

As soon as he entered the kitchen, something seemed off. Nothing explicit that he could put his finger on, just something wrong. After some poking around, Lex finally came to the conclusion that Clark must have come through earlier to make himself a snack. So much for not even knowing he was here.

(Of course, there had never been any real hope of that.)

* * *

 **December 19** **th**

With his laptop tucked under one arm Lex headed to the media room. He had found in the past that the more creative tasks required by his job were best accomplish somewhere other than his office. He'd taken to using the media room because the sound system in there was ideal if he decided music would help hit thought process.

When he arrived, however, Clark was sprawled out on the couch watching a movie. He quickly went to get up, but Lex motioned for him to stay. Lex had plenty of rooms, he could find an unoccupied one.

But, on the other hand, Lex was used to working in media room, and he wouldn't want to mess with a successful formula. It wouldn't be that hard to ignore the TV. Clark might be a bit harder to tune out, admittedly; he tended to be a talker when watching movies.

Clark never said a word or even made a sound, with the exception of a few soft chuckles. After the movies was over he turned the TV and, just as silently, left.

Lex definitely shouldn't have been pissed.

* * *

 **December 20** **th**

Lex woke up that morning from a dream that was eerily similar to the post-gunshot fever dream he had had on Christmas of 8 years ago, except with Clark in Lana's place. (In all fairness to his mother, Lex supposed he didn't know for sure that Clark _couldn't_ get pregnant, at least, not without extensive body scans that Lex highly doubted that Clark would submit to, 'friends' or no.) In the end, Clark and their unborn baby died because some madman practically drowned them kryptonite, which he was able to get his hands on because Lex had stopped collecting it as part of becoming a 'good man', and Lex wasn't able to cure them, because he had also stopped any research into kryptonite or Kryptonians as part of being a 'good man.' Frankly, 'good' Lex was something of moron, and while Lex had never wanted to tell his mom to fuck off before, but he was seriously starting to consider the merits of the idea.

He would show them. He would keep stockpiling as much kryptonite as he could get his hands on, so nobody could ever use it on Clark but Lex, and he would create a cure for it in case someone did, and he would continue to refuse to be friends with Clark, despite his mother's wishes. Nobody told Lex Luthor what to do.

Lex stormed about the penthouse all day, waiting for Clark to arrive, so Lex could tell him to fuck off – the still living man person whatever being a much more convenient outlet for his rage than a ghost that Lex wasn't sure how to contact and who may just be a figment of Lex's own imagination. But today must have been less stressful for Clark, or maybe the Kents were doing some kind of family bonding activity, because Clark never came.

Around about nine o'clock, Mercy sought Lex out and patted him on the comfortingly shoulder, saying, "I'm sure he'll swing by tomorrow." It occurred to Lex in that moment that he was rapidly losing control over his personal life.

He should probably be more upset about that than he was.

* * *

 **December 21** **st**

Lex wandered through the penthouse, looking for Mercy to let her know he was planning on ordering some food in and to see if she wanted any. He certainly wasn't hoping to run into Clark, because why should he care if Clark was feeling hungry again this afternoon? They weren't friends, after all.

Finally, Lex stumbled across both Clark and Mercy in the smaller study set aside for her use, Mercy sitting at the computer with Clark standing behind her looking intently at the screen.

"But I still don't get it," Clark was saying. "I mean, Warrior Angel and Devilicus would never realistically be able to sustain a relationship if Devilicus were still evil."

"It's not always about the romance; sometimes it's just about the porn. And hate sex is really, really hot." Mercy considered for a moment further before adding, "Or it could be a crack fic, which is not so much for the realism thing. But personally I prefer the hate sex."

"I guess," Clark said doubtfully and Mercy, rolled her eyes at him.

"May I recommend the hurt/comfort tag to you instead? Something tells me that's more your speed."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"

"Anyways," Mercy said, ignoring Clark completely, "if you read a story you like, well, the first thing you should do is leave a review because that's just common courtesy, but after that you should check out the author's page. See if we click on my name here… then it takes you to my profile and you can see all the other stories I've written."

Clark appeared to be following along with Mercy's instructions when suddenly his brow furrowed in thought. "What does RPF stand for?"

On second thought, Lex thought, best not to disturb them. He would just order plenty of food, and if Mercy and Clark didn't eat anything then Lex would have leftovers.

* * *

 **December 22** **nd**

"What are you planning, Clark?" After Clark left the day before, Lex had interrogated Mercy, who had had nothing much to say – well, nothing interesting… well, nothing immediately relevant to Lex's concerns – and then spent the night brooding. He had been willing to believe that Clark's offer, to use the term loosely, of renewed friendship had been a genuine, if exceedingly stupid and optimistic, one. But Clark had now been in the penthouse for hours at a time, almost four days in a row, and had not once attempted to talk to Lex, or ask him for increasingly elaborate favors, or look at him with big green eyes that made Lex feel warm and vulnerable in his chest (and sometimes frequently hot and bothered in other places), or in any way to cross the boundaries that Lex had set. He had to be up to something.

Clark looked up from where he had been sprawled out on the couch in the media room again, watching another movie. "Uh, I'm not sure what you're talking about? But I'm not much of a planner, generally speaking. You should probably ask Chloe about whatever it is. Or maybe Lois, depending. Or maybe Conner, he's actually a pretty good planner too, which he definitely doesn't get from me," Clark said, shooting a look laden with meaning, though damned if Lex had any clue what the meaning was. When Lex failed to immediately respond to Clark's significant look, Clark sighed and continued. "Is it a Superman thing, or a Clark Kent, reporter thing?"

"A Clark Kent thing, full stop. It's been four days and you haven't tried to bother me once about your supposed desire to become friends again."

"You asked me not to," Clark protested.

"When have you ever done anything I've asked of you?"

"Well, I thought I was doing pretty well this time until right now. Which I don't think that this should count against me because, and I'm not complaining, but it's pretty hard to stay out of your way when you come up to me and start up a conversation. Though if this is going to be your reaction any time I listen to you, maybe I shouldn't bother."

"I just understand why you're here. You can't really expect me to believe that you went to all the trouble of getting yourself into my home and now you're content to spend your time lounging about watching movies and reading porn."

"Hey, it wasn't all porn, there were some really thoughtful character-driven romances in there. Though you definitely made the right choice getting out of there before Mercy went into RPF. There are some things that I really didn't want to know that people think about Superman."

"You knew I was there?" Lex had seen anything to indicate Clark was aware of his presence. If Clark had gotten better at lying, Lex was going to be pissed. And also oddly proud.

"Of course I knew you were there. C'mon Lex, you don't really think Superman would be that oblivious, do you?" Point of fact, Lex did think Clark was that oblivious on a lot of levels, though, to be fair, awareness of his physical surroundings was not one of them.

"You still haven't answered my question," Lex pointed out.

"I don't know what you want me to say or what I can say that I haven't already. It's way too stressful to deal with Perry White, my boss and Perry White, my Mom's boyfriend, over prolonged periods of times, so I'm hiding out at your place because it was the best option."

"I thought I was your only option," Lex said accusatorially, though he wasn't sure which made him madder, the thought that Clark hadn't exhausted absolutely all other possibilities before coming to ask Lex for a favor, of the thought that he had. Either way, there was definitely some sort of lying involved.

"Can't it be both?" Technically, if there were only one available option, it would have to be the best one, and the worst, but the lack of comparisons rendered the term 'best' somewhat meaningless. Lex didn't say any of this out loud, but Clark must have heard it regardless, because he sighed. "Look, like I told you, I wouldn't have bothered you if I had another way around it. But if I thought me being here wouldn't bother you…

"I've been thinking a lot lately, especially since Lois and I called it off. At some point I just got so preoccupied with my powers and being an alien and the responsibilities that come with that, that I think who I am and my own life got lost on the wayside. So I started trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted and you know what I realized? I really missed being friends with you. I know there was a lot of crap that happened between us, but looking back on it now, it kind of feels like you just woke up on day and decided to be evil out of nowhere and I lost the best friend I ever had."

"I was never evil. You just never listened to me or showed any interest in trying to understand why I was doing the things I did," Lex objected, though not as heatedly as he usually did.

"I'll cop to that," Clark said offhandedly, and Lex allowed himself a brief moment to wonder if Clark Kent admitting he was wrong was a sign that the Apocalypse was nigh. "But Lex, you were a little bit evil. You have to meet me halfway on this one."

Lex made a vague noise of acknowledgement. Morality was relative, Lex supposed. "Just, what do you want from me?"

"I want you to be my friend," Clark said, his voice small and raw and vulnerable and a thousand things it should never be. And God, Lex was never going to be able to say no to Clark was he, not really.

"Okay," Lex said, the word barely breathed out.

"Okay?"

"Okay, we can be friends again."

"Really? We can? Does that mean I can hug you now?" Clark asked.

"No," Lex bit out. There was only so much he could take at once. Clark's face fell and Lex felt his resolve, what little of it there was left, weakening. "But I do have a pool table in the other room…"

Clark grinned, like the sun coming out after the longest night of winter.

Well, if Lex was going to shatter his heart again, at least it would be worth the fall.

* * *

 **December 23** **rd**

When Clark arrived at Lex's penthouse that day, the two of them shared a few brief awkward moments as they tried to feel their way back to the easy camaraderie of over a decade ago. But only a few, because less than a minute after Clark arrived, his brother Conner suddenly appeared in the room.

Well, this was just getting ridiculous. Sure, Lex more than had the basic reasoning skills to connect the teenaged boy Martha Kent had recently adopted to Superman's newest sidekick and younger brother Superboy, but he certainly had never given any indication that he knew Superboy's secret identity. Really, it said a lot, none of it good, about the intelligence of the general population that more people hadn't figured out their secret identities if this was the level of skill at keeping them that these two were bringing to the table.

"This is where you've been sneaking off to?" Conner asked incredulously, and Lex prepared himself for a long lecture about how truly evil Lex was, and why Clark couldn't associate with him, all conducted directly in front of him, as though Lex wasn't even in the room. "Dude, why didn't you tell me we're allowed to hang out with Lex now? That's awesome." Or not.

"I wanted to make sure Lex wasn't going to freak out and break out the Kryptonite or anything first." Which was probably a fair concern for Clark to have for himself, but Lex found it a bit perplexing that Clark's definition of not evil still allowed for the torture of teenage boys – something that Lex would never do, by the way. That time with the glass of water didn't count. Though there had been that speedster electricity death-cage… well, Lex had been in a bad place back then. Not to mention, Conner had never committed systematic acts of sabotage and destruction against LexCorp.

"That's stupid. You know the Fortress said that my biology is less susceptible to Kryptonite than yours. If anything I should be the one covering for you."

"Less doesn't mean not. Besides, watching out for a younger brother is the older brother's prerogative," Lex interjected. If he and Clark were friends again, then Lex felt it was his duty to stand up for Clark.

"I guess," Conner said in a tone that suggested his was deeply questioning Lex's intelligence. Conner was also seventeen, so Lex tried not to take that too personally.

"Speaking of," Conner continued, "Am I allowed to call you Dad, or are you putting a ban on that like Clark did?"

"You can call me Dad if you want to," Clark said with the resigned tone of a long-standing argument.

"Well, yeah, I _can_ call you anything I want as long as it's not a hate crime. Free speech, you know. But the last time I tried to call you Dad, you practically had a panic attack."

"I told you, I wasn't hyperventilating, you just surprised me and I choked on my water," protested Clark.

Lex cleared his throat pointedly; he didn't appreciate being ignored in his own home, even if it didn't involve lectures about the depths of his depravity. "For what possible reason would Conner, your brother, be calling me Dad?"

Both Clark and Conner looked at Lex in surprise, before Conner turned an accusatory glare at Clark. "You didn't tell him?"

"Why would I have to tell him? I thought he knew; it was his company!" Clark protested.

"Like he knows everything that happened in his multinational, billion-dollar company while he was dead. I know you think he's awesome, Clark, but Lex doesn't actually know everything."

Lex considered saying none was taken – it was honestly nice to have someone acknowledge it for once – but that might imply that he also wasn't offended by being talked about like he wasn't standing right there. Again. In any case, Clark answered before Lex could get a word in.

"Not everything, but who else would have started up about a project like that? Did a LuthorCorp scientist go off the deep end and start up this crazy project out of an obsessive love for Lex?" Neither Lex nor Conner said anything in response to that, just looked at Clark.

"Okay, now that I've said it out loud, I admit it sounds pretty plausible."

"Is anyone going to tell me what this project was?" Lex asked, his patience wearing thin.

Conner and Clark exchanged another look. "All you, bro," Conner said.

Clark crinkled his nose in distaste. "Thanks."

"I'm waiting," Lex said.

Clark turned back to Lex, his expression morphing into on that suggested he hadn't entirely discounted the possibility of Lex breaking out the kryptonite. "Well, you know Cadmus labs was doing all those cloning projects? I guess they decided to start trying to clone you."

"I can't be cloned, not successfully" Lex interjected. "None of the meteor mutants can. Their DNA is too corrupted and even if a clone were created it would degenerate in short order."

"Which was a problem that the researchers did run into, and they came up with a number of different techniques to try to get around it. Including splicing in some of my DNA. And by some, I mean more like half."

Lex's automatic response, that at that point the creation could no longer be considered a clone even in the colloquial sense, died in his throat as he started to realize the implications of what Clark had said. Lex looked, really looked at Conner for the first time, and took in not just the sheepish yet hopeful expression, but the features that made up the expression, the distinctive way they shaped themselves around steel blue eyes and the way that Conner looked, in general, just like Lex had at that age.

Lex turned on Clark. "I have a son and you didn't think to tell me?"

Clark threw his hands up in an automatic defensive gesture. "I thought you knew!" (While Clark was saying that, Conner was giving a slow pump of his fist and whispering 'yessssss' in the background, but Lex had more urgent concerns at the moment, if not necessarily more important ones.) "You have to admit it sounds like the kind of crazy obsessive thing that you would have done," Clark continued. "Especially while you were high on whatever painkillers you had to be taking after you tried to blow up the Fortress."

"So you thought, what? That I knew I had a son, and I was just ignoring him?"

"Well, now that you say it out loud..."

"You know Clark, maybe you should start saying things out loud all the time, to check for idiocy," Conner commented. "I'm just saying."

"Please do," Lex agreed with a sigh. It wouldn't do any good to get mad; Clark's act had been a thoughtless one, but not malicious and getting pissed off at Clark had never gotten Lex anything but a headache and an extensive collection of priceless knickknacks that were shattered beyond repair.

"I really am sorry I didn't tell you before," Clark said.

"Thank you," replied Lex. It was never too soon to start reinforcing good habits. Or too late, depending on one's perspective on the matter.

"Cool, now that you guys have got that sorted and Lex is officially my dad now, I think I'll go ahead and move into the penthouse after Christmas," Conner announced.

"Excuse me?" Lex was really starting to sense a pattern with these two.

"You're right, Grandma Martha would freak if I left before New Year's. Better call it the third to be safe."

"No Conner, I think what Lex actually meant is he wanted you to ask if you could move in with him," Clark interjected. "We've talked about asking for permission before."

"I thought that was about making sure I didn't accidentally kidnap people," objected Conner. "Besides, I'm sure Dad didn't mind; he's way less sensitive than Lois."

Clark mumbled something that Lex thought sounded like 'you'd be surprised' but for the sake of their newly reclaimed friendship, Lex magnanimously decided to ignore it. "It was about everything," Clark continued. "You can never have too much consent, okay?"

"Okay," Conner said, and now he was deeply questioning _Clark's_ intelligence. Then he turned to Lex and asked, in a tone that was far more inconvenienced than anyone asking for a favor had a right to be – he definitely got that from Clark – "Can I please move into the penthouse with you? D.C. is super boring compared to Metropolis, plus all the kids at school are always giving me all kinds of fake pity because I'm adopted."

Half of Lex was elated at the prospect. He had always wanted to be a father, from a very young age. True, when he had been a child it had been more about wanting to create a new family for himself that would love him unconditionally, but he'd matured since then and liked to think that now he wanted children on their own merits rather than for what they could give him. Whatever Jonathan Kent's flaws might have been, Lex credited him and Mrs. Kent for their help in learning that particular lesson.

The other half of Lex was completely terrified. Sure, he wanted to be a parent and take everything that his mother and father had done wrong and do it right, but what if he didn't? What if he couldn't? Lex knew the statistics on children who grew up in abusive households, not the least because Lana had pointedly read a number of articles on the subject back when she thought she was pregnant ('I'm not trying to imply anything about anyone; I just think it's important that we be informed'). In fact, it was the nightmares, both literal and metaphorical, caused by those articles that lead to Lex letting out a secret sigh of relief when he had found out that Lana's pregnancy test had given a false positive. (Though, in retrospect, it had probably been the guilt over his relief that had in turned lead to his panic that Lana would leave him when she found out and his plot to fake her pregnancy until after the wedding. Not one of his better moments.)

"How would we even explain why you were living here?" Lex finally asked, which wasn't exactly a yes, or a no. Besides, someone had to consider the practicalities of secret identities, since it was clear Conner and Clark weren't.

"Are you kidding? Orphan kid goes looking for his biological parents and gets welcomed with open arms by his father who never even knew he had a son? That's PR gold right there," Conner said. Clearly Lex's son was a genius.

But just because Lex was really starting to be able to visualize Conner sharing his space with him and discovering that he really desperately wanted that, didn't mean it was the right thing for Conner. And that was what had to come first, wasn't it?

Clark gently cleared his throat. "Not to put any pressure on here, but I don't think it's a bad idea."

Lex looked at him in surprise. Clark's endorsement was the very last thing he had expected. Clark's silent acceptance maybe, but not his explicit agreement to the idea. The only thing more unlikely would be if the ghost of Jonathan Kent were to suddenly show up to voice his support as well. Although…

"It's alright with me if Mrs. Kent says it's alright with her," Lex said. It was the perfect solution because Lex would have insisted on getting her go ahead regardless, because it did not do to get on the bad side of Martha Kent, but also, if she said it was okay… as far as Lex was concerned, there was no better endorsement for any parent than the approval of Mrs. Kent.

Conner pulled a face. "Fine. I just hope Grandma Martha doesn't get weird about me getting a 'normal high school experience.' She does that sometimes."

"Whatever she thinks is best" Lex insisted.

Clark rolled his eyes. "Don't worry, I'll talk to her."

"Because Grandma Martha totally always listened to you about Lex," Conner said, which was a fair point. "Whatever, we'll work it out. So Dad, you got any video games?"

Lex was fazed by the abrupt shift in topic for a few moments – Lionel would have been so disappointed (Lex still did _not_ care about that. He didn't.) – allowing Clark to jump in and try to answer on his behalf. "I didn't see any video game systems, but there's a huge movie collection in the media room."

"Actually," Lex corrected, "I think I have an old Xbox around somewhere." At the back of the top left shelf of his bedroom closet. It had to be significantly refurbished after the fire, of course, but it was still the same one Lex had bought a month after meeting Clark, even if most of the games in the box next to it were replacements for the originals.

"An original Xbox? Retro," said Conner, sounding approving because apparently game systems that were over a decade old were cool now. God, Lex was old.

"I'll just go get it, then. Clark can show you to the media room, and I'll meet you there in a few minutes." Lex turned and left to do just that. He most certainly was not fleeing Clark's knowing look, not at all.

God damn it.

* * *

 **December 24** **th**

When Clark had first showed up a week ago looking for a place to hide out, Lex had assumed that his job would be done after the 23rd. Even after they had reestablished their friendship and Lex had taken on Conner as his son the day before, Lex had assumed that he wouldn't be seeing either of the two of them again until at least the 26th. He certainly hadn't expected them both to show up early – relatively speaking, Lex was fairly certain that any time before noon was early for a teenager – the next morning on Christmas Eve. Didn't they have Christmas traditions to keep or something?

"Actually, most of our Christmas traditions are for Christmas day," Clark told Lex when Lex pointed that out. "Besides, Perry and Mom don't get to spend that much time together in person, what with them living in different states; I think they're enjoying the alone time, if you catch my drift."

"He means they're taking advantage of our absence to have loads of sex," Conner supplied 'helpfully.'

Clark winced, and Lex found himself wanting to too, a little bit. That was not how he wanted to think about Mrs. Kent. "Geez Conner, why aren't you more weirded out by stuff like that?" Clark asked.

"My introduction to sex was being given the talk by you after nearly burning your then-fiancé alive because heat-vision is apparently induced by horniness." Initially induced or always induced, because that could be an interesting thought to store away for later. It definitely put a new spin on certain things. "And your version of the talk included not just the normal birds and bees, but also cows and bulls, and, for some reason, lions, lioness, and, quote, 'highly suggestive water bottles.' After that, nothing can phase me when it comes to sex."

"I'm surprised, Clark," Lex said. He let Clark sputter and make incoherent comments about water bottles and really phallic pool cues for a few moments – as though Lex was going to hold any of that against him; Clark had been a teenager, which were, as a rule, generally very horny, and Lex hadn't been as subtle as he thought he was being back then – before continuing. "You didn't touch on the dangers of lust inducing meteor mutants?"

"Oh no, stalkers were a whole separate rant," Conner said. "One about how no one was good enough for-"

"Thank you, Conner," Clark interrupted, blushing furiously. "I think that's enough for one day."

Lex smirked at him. He was hardly surprised to learn that Clark had gone back to obsessing over Lana Lang. Every other girl Clark had ever had feelings for had only ever been a brief hiatus in the epic saga of Clark Kent and Lana Lang, Lois had just been a longer interruption than most. So Lex was disappointed, for reasons too long and varied to list, and not the least because Lana was literally poison to Clark now (that may have been a bit of overkill on Lex's part, admittedly, but he stood behind the metaphor), but not surprised.

"So, did the two of you have plans for today?" Lex asked, because he certainly didn't have any prepared.

They did not, so Clark suggested that the three of them go ice skating. Conner vetoed that idea on the grounds of it being 'lame' and while Lex didn't have a problem with the activity in itself, he did feel obligated to remind Clark that this was Metropolis, not Smallville, and that any and all skating rinks were bound to be far too crowded today to be enjoyable. Of course, Lex was more than capable of fixing that problem with a quick phone call, but he knew better than to even mention that. Lex suggested instead that they go pick out furniture to re-outfit one of the guest bedrooms for Conner; regardless of whether or not he moved in, Lex always wanted Conner to feel comfortable and welcome in the penthouse. Conner declared this idea as being equally lame, and Clark was sure that there would be even more people out shopping than there were at the skating rinks. Lex pointed out that very few people were likely to be buying furniture as a Christmas gift, especially the high quality furniture Lex preferred to buy, but that did not say the other two.

Clark and Lex continued to make a number of suggestions, all which were rejected on the grounds of crowds or 'lameness.' Finally, Conner said that they should play more Xbox and watch some movies – not Christmas movies, he was sure to clarify, because watching Christmas movies after dinner on Christmas Eve and Christmas was one of the Kent family traditions, so he was sure to get enough of that later. Clark frowned a bit, like he thought they should be doing something more special, but Lex smirked a little and declared it a great idea, sending Conner scampering off to the media room.

The other two followed at a more sedate pace, so by the time they reached the room, Conner had already opened the cabinet beneath the TV and was sitting back looking in awe. Nestled alongside the Xbox was now a Playstation – the second one, as it was Lex's understanding it played games from the original system too – a Nintendo, a Super Nintendo, an N64, a Gamecube, a Sega Genesis, a Sega Saturn, a Sega Dreamcast, and an Atari, along with a small collection of games for each.

"Best. Christmas present. Ever," Conner declared when he looked back at the two of them. "Thanks, Dad!"

Conner jumped up and gave Lex a quick hug, before turning back to tearing through the games.

Clark's hand on Lex's shoulder broke him out of his surprise; Conner's enthusiasm he had expected, the hug he had not. "Good job, Lex," Clark said, grinning at him.

They didn't get around to watching any movies that day before Clark and Conner had to leave for Christmas Eve dinner at Mrs. Kent's, but nobody really cared.

* * *

When Clark came back that night, Lex was sitting in front of a fire, drinking a glass of scotch.

"Can we just put a ban in place against brooding? For both of us; I feel like it never works out well," Clark said. Lex turned to look at him, not having expected to see Clark again until at least the 26th, for certain this time, but somehow not surprised by his reappearance either. Maybe Lex had finally learned to actually expect the unexpected where it came to Clark (probably not, though).

"I wasn't brooding, just thinking. I haven't had much time to myself these past two days," Lex commented wryly, and watched in amazement as Clark appeared to instantly change into a bashful teenager again.

"If you want me to go…"

Lex waved off his concerns and indicated that Clark should join him instead. "Time to oneself is vastly overrated. Besides I've had enough Christmases by myself." Not to mention that Lex wasn't sure how long this thing, whatever it was – a fit of insanity on Clark's part, Lex supposed – was going to last, so best make the most of it while he could.

"Mercy isn't here?" Clark asked, moving into the room and setting down his small pile of brightly wrapped presents on the coffee table. He sat down on the couch next to Lex, a bit closer than entirely normal between friends. It really wasn't fair of Clark, Lex was trying so hard to be a good friend and not read anything more into it than was intended, but then Clark kept doing things like that, while Lex was slightly buzzed, no less.

"I don't actually make my staff work past ten at night on Christmas Eve, no," Lex replied.

Clark snorted and leaned in to give Lex's shoulder a friendly bump. _Friendly,_ god damn it, and Lex's libido and his mother's ghost could just shut up. "I know that. I just meant, doesn't she live in the next floor down? The two of you could keep each other company."

"We could, but she's actually at her parent's house right now. My understanding is that none of the three of them like each other at all, but given how uncommon it is for people from Suicide Slums to still have both their parents, Mercy feels obligated to try on Christmas. She'll be back first thing Friday though, if you had something you wanted to give her," Lex said, motioning toward the packages Clark had brought.

"The bottom one is for her," Clark confirmed. "It's a bulletproof vest made of the same stuff Batman puts uses in his uniform."

"Batman outfitted _my_ bodyguard with a piece of his personal technology?" Lex asked, incredulous.

Clark blushed. "I may have neglected to mention to him who the vest was for," Clark mumbled and Lex raised an eyebrow. Clark may have neglected to mention, but Lex could hardly imagine that Batman neglected to ask. "In this one particular instance, I don't think he cares; actually I wouldn't be surprised if he outfitted the Joker with a vest if he ever asked. Batman has a thing about guns."

Lex rather thought that Batman had a thing about a lot of things, but then, Lex was hardly in a position to be casting stones about other people neuroses. Especially when said neuroses were benefiting Lex's people.

"I'm sure she'll appreciate it," Lex said. "And the other two packages?"

Clark gave Lex an odd look. "Those are for you." The 'obviously' was unspoken, but quite audible, nonetheless. And here was Clark doing the expected thing, the thing that Lex had, in fact, expected and prepared for, and somehow taking Lex completely by surprise. "I wanted to give them to you tonight, since I wasn't sure if I'd see you tomorrow."

"I see. One moment," Lex said getting up and excusing himself from the room. He came back a minute later carrying the box that contained Lex's present to Clark. "I would have given it to you earlier, but I hadn't had a chance to wrap it yet," Lex explained, handing the package to Clark before sitting back down exactly as close to Clark as he had been before he had gotten up. Let Clark read into that what he will.

"Thanks, Lex. Can I open it now?" Lex motioned for him to go ahead, and Clark tore into the wrapping with the same enthusiasm, if not the wild abandon, as when he had been a teenager. Once he'd gotten the lid off the box, Clark let out a delighted laugh, and Lex found himself grinning as well.

"You think your mom will let you keep this one?" Lex asked as Clark pulled out the model 2002 Ford F 250 Super Duty in Race Red with a white racing stripe. Lex had had it for years; he had it made not too long after he and Clark first became friends, with the intention of gifting it to Clark when the appropriate occasion came about, for graduation, maybe. But then their friendship had fizzled out in a blaze of glory without any such opportunity. Lex had considered getting rid of the model on countless occasions, but he never quite managed it, telling himself that he was keeping it as a reminder of what could happen when you let people in.

In retrospect, Lex might have a better gift for self-delusion than even Clark.

"I don't care what mom says, I'm definitely keeping it," Clark joked back. "This is perfect Lex, thank you." Then he turned and swept Lex up in a hug, warm and safe and close and over far, far too quickly and all Lex could think was how he could get Clark to do it again. Do it again and never stop doing it.

"You're welcome," Lex said a moment later, once his brain had come back online. "Should I open yours now?"

"Oh, uh, yeah, I guess," Clark replied, looking nervous. That was odd; Clark had been raised to believe that the giving of gifts was better than the receiving, and Lex had never seen him be anything less than eager, overeager even, to give someone a gift.

"Does it matter which I open first?" Lex asked as he reached forward toward the packages.

"The square one," Clark instructed, so Lex grabbed that, leaving the longer rectangular package for the moment.

Lex was briefly tempted to open the package very slowly and methodically, pulling up the tape and folding back the wrapping paper, that sort of thing, just to annoy Clark. But he found himself too curious after Clark's unusual display to waste the time, so he just ripped off the paper.

Underneath the bright red wrapping, Lex found himself confronted with a little blue box. A little blue box that was very familiar from Lex's halcyon days of brief affairs and one-night stands. Lex turned to look at Clark, one eyebrow raised.

Clark blushed. "That's Lois's idea of a joke. I didn't have a box the right size and when I told Lois what I need it for, she insisted I use that one. I promise it's not diamond earrings." Of course not, because Clark giving Lex diamond earrings, aside from being completely nonsensical, would be implying something that Clark would never want to imply with regards to Lex, and Lex was really regretting that scotch right about now.

Attempting to dispel those thoughts, Lex took the lid off the box, and found himself utterly speechless. Inside the box was an octagonal metal disc, the very same one he had found in Miller's field all those years ago. He had long since figured out where the disc had gotten to, of course, and he wasn't even upset that Clark had taken it anymore, it was from his ship, after all. Lex could quite honestly say he hadn't thought about the funny little thing in years, much less missed it in any respect. Strange, how you could not realize how much you wanted something until it was handed to you.

"It doesn't actually do anything anymore," Clark explained apologetically. "It used to be able to open a short-cut from the Kawatche caves up to the Fortress, but once I was able to fly up there, Jor-El shut that entrance down; I guess he wasn't very happy about all the random people that kept showing up. I just wanted to give you this as a sort of a symbol. I told you I want us to be friends again, but I don't want it to be like before, when we were lying to each other all the time. So that key is my promise to you that I'm going to be honest from now on. Though, I guess if you wanted to take it as free license to visit the Fortress whenever, you could, but you should be careful. Jor-El's a lot nicer now that he's away from the ambient kryptonite radiation in Smallville that was messing with his programming, but he might still be pissed that you tried to blow him up that one time."

"Your Fortress is inhabited by the AI of your dead biological father?" Lex asked, choosing to focus on a minor detail rather than the real content of what Clark had just said. Lex gave grand declarations, he wasn't that great at receiving them.

"Yeah. He was originally a part of the programming in the ship that brought me to Earth and he uploaded himself to the pre-existing Kryptonian technology in the caves before I destroyed the ship. Then, after I created the Fortress using the Crystal of Knowledge, he uploaded himself to that instead and destroyed pretty much all the tech left in the caves aside from the teleportation room, which, like I said, he destroyed later."

"Well, that certainly was honest," Lex commented. Then he took on a more serious tone. "Thank you, Clark. I'll treasure it." Lex thought about hugging Clark, surely it was a normal allowed thing if Clark had done it after opening his gift from Lex, but he ultimately decided against it. After a proclamation like that from Clark, Lex wasn't sure he trusted himself.

"You know, you might have wanted to lead with your other gift," Lex said as he carefully set the box with the disc in it aside to pick up the second package. "Because I'm fairly certain this won't be able to top that."

"About that gift," Clark said nervously and Lex raised an interested eyebrow. He had assumed that Clark's anxiety from earlier was related to the disc, and lingering unease from years of conditioning not to reveal his alien heritage to anyone. Apparently not.

"Is there something wrong with my gift?" Lex asked

"Of course there's nothing _wrong_ with it; this is Kansas, not the 50's." Lex, amused, looked down at the thin box again. No, definitely not a rock 'n' roll record. "I just want you to know that it doesn't have to mean anything. Well, it obviously means something, but it doesn't have to change anything. I don't want you to think it obligates you in any way. I actually was debating giving it to you at all, but I had that whole speech about honesty planned, and it seemed hypocritical not to give it to you after that. But if you don't want that from me anymore, or maybe it's too soon, or maybe you never wanted it from me in the first place, though I don't think I read that wrong because you aren't always subtle, but in any case it's fine. It's all fine. I just wanted you to know that you could have if you did want it. Um."

Lex considered telling Clark he should babble more often, because frankly it was a bit adorable. On the other hand, adorable Clark made Lex want to ravish him, and that was a thought that Lex was supposed to be repressing. Best not then.

"Can I open it now?" he asked instead.

"Before I nervous vomit would be ideal," Clark agreed. Lex thought he was being facetious because he was fairly certain Clark had to be exposed to some form of kryptonite before he would throw-up, but Lex readied himself to move out of the line of fire quickly, just in case.

As a further concession to Clark's possibly upset stomach, Lex wasted no time in pulling off the paper, and gave the box – a jewelry box again, this time one for a necklace or a bracelet, and presumably another one of Lois's jokes – only the briefest of glances before taking off the lid to look inside.

At that point, Lex began to reconsider the merits of hiring a therapist now that Lionel was dead and probably gone and therefore unable to suborn anyone that Lex hired, because Lex had clearly started hallucinating again. That, or Lex had fallen asleep staring into the fire and dreamed this whole interlude and Clark was about to announce his pregnancy any second now. Either of those options seemed far more likely than the possibility that Clark had actually given Lex a carefully wrapped sprig of mistletoe.

"But you're straight," Lex objected after deciding that the mistletoe didn't have quite the right quality to be a hallucination and that if this really were a dream, there was no harm in going with it for now.

"I'm an alien, I don't think any of those term apply to me, technically." Technically, that got into a discussion of biological sex versus gender identity that Lex didn't really feel like getting into right now when Clark knew what Lex was talking about and was just being pedantic. Maybe later. "Besides last year Jor-El decided that he had been remiss in not giving me the talk when I was growing up and apparently Kryptonian sexuality is really…" Clark made a few expansive gestures that Lex assumed were intended to impart meaning and were not the random flailings of a man having a seizure. "Especially when you start getting humans involved."

"I see," Lex said, though, no he really didn't. Hopefully the AI would be open to talking to him, despite their little… misunderstanding before. "Practically speaking, what does that mean?"

"Mostly that I don't really have a type, I'm just attracted to people," Clark said.

"Kinky," Lex observed dryly and Clark blushed.

"Not all people, and not all at once," Clark protested. "Just certain people."

"And you gave me mistletoe because…" Lex prompted.

"Mostly because it seemed kind of rude and forward to just kiss you when I wasn't sure what you wanted from me," said Clark.

Lex leaned in and gave Clark a quick but fierce kiss. "Everything. I want everything." Lex wasn't entirely convinced this was real, but he was absolutely not missing this chance if it was.

Lex blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, he was on his bed, naked, with Clark suspended above him. Lex would have to give Clark a talking to later about the benefits of taking one's time in the bedroom, but for now, Lex could definitely work with this.

* * *

 **December 25** **th**

"Lex, you need to wake up for a minute." Lex cracked one bleary eye open and glared at Clark, who was standing beside the bed fully dressed in his clothes from the night before. Lex glared harder.

"What could you possibly want that can't wait until morning?"

"I have to go. Mom expects me to be home on Christmas morning, for, you know, Christmas morning."

"And you thought waking me up at…" Lex glanced at his bedside clock, "three o'clock in the morning to tell me this was a good idea?"

"A better idea than just sneaking out and leaving a note," Clark countered, which was fair. Though that didn't explain why Clark hadn't mentioned it the night before. Well, they had been rather busy, Lex supposed.

"And actually, there was another reason I needed to wake you up. We got kind of distracted last night and I didn't get a chance to tell you the other thing," said Clark.

"What other thing?" he asked. Lex swore to God, if Clark was about to break out something about Kryptonian sexuality only allowing for one night stands, he was going to shoot Clark again, with kryptonite this time. Or maybe red kryptonite, Lex was willing to place even odds on Red K Clark being up for round two (well, technically round three and a half at this point). In fact, that might be a good idea to store away for later regardless.

"Mom wants you to come over for Christmas dinner tomorrow. Or tonight, I guess."

"Mrs. Kent does not want me in her house," Lex stated baldly.

"Okay, so maybe it wasn't her idea, but she agreed to it after Conner and I suggested it," Clark insisted. Lex continued to stare at him. "And I may have mentioned that Mom owed me after having Lionel over for Thanksgiving that one time."

Lex sighed. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the consideration, because he did, but this didn't strike him as a terribly good idea. "I don't want to interrupt your family time. Besides I really want to make sure that the first Christmas I spend with Conner is perfect and I'm just not prepared this year. In fact, after all the Luthor family Christmases growing up, I probably will need the better part of this next year to learn how to do everything the correct way."

"The only thing you need to make Christmas perfect is to have all your loved ones around you," Clark said while standing in what Lex had privately dubbed his 'good family values' stance: arms crossed, feet shoulder width apart, and an unbelievably earnest expression on his face. It was actually extremely similar to Superman's typical pose, which may have been part of the reason Lex found Superman so annoying.

"So sayeth the Whos down in Whoville?" Lex quipped.

Clark winced a little and dropped his arms. "Okay, I admit that was a bit cheesy, but it's true. Besides, you already got Conner his present, and Mom and I have taken care of all the of all the other traditional Christmas things, so all there's left for you to do is show up to dinner and maybe watch a few corny movies afterward. If you're still worried about the perfect Christmas next year, I promise I'll walk you through every last silly tradition."

Lex took a moment to really evaluate Clark's expression, the determined set to his jaw and the oh so hopeful glint to his eye, and came to the conclusion that, no, there was absolutely no way Lex was getting out of this one. "Fine, I'll come," he conceded. "But next year from the day after Thanksgiving all the way through New Year's, you are mine."

Clark gave Lex a funny sort of smile then, like Lex had said something amusing, or like he was missing something. "Of course Lex, I'm all yours."

After that, there was a brief discussion of logistics: when Clark was going to pick Lex up, what Lex should wear, etc., followed by a good-bye kiss that had turned into a good-bye make-out session that nearly had turned into round three and a half right then and there. Finally, though, Clark flew off, leaving Lex alone in bed to try and fall back asleep.

Fuck. This was going to be hell.

* * *

"So Conner tells me he wants to move in with you?" Mrs. Kent said, and the tension in the room, which had already been rather heavy, thickened perceptibly.

The two of them were in the kitchen washing the cookware after a reasonably pleasant, if somewhat stiff, Christmas dinner. (There had also been the brief shouting match that Lex and Perry had gotten into midway through the meal, but Clark had assured Lex that such occurrences were well within the bounds of normal, and Conner had just seemed amused by the whole thing anyway.) Clark had protested to this arrangement, citing Lex's status as a guest should preclude him from clean-up duties, but Mrs. Kent quite reasonably pointed out that technically Clark and Perry were guests too, but that wasn't stopping them from being in charge of setting up her new entertainment system. Lex appreciated what Clark was trying to do in standing up for him, but he had joined Mrs. Kent in shooing the other man off. This conversation had to happen sooner or later, and Lex would honestly rather that there were no witnesses to it.

"That's correct. Of course, I told him that he would have to discuss it with you first," Lex said.

Mrs. Kent nodded, clearly having expected no less. "You'll have to make sure he contacts all the colleges he applied to, to explain the situation to them. I wouldn't recommend transferring him into a high school in Metropolis; it wouldn't be worth it, since he only has a semester to go and I'm sure he could test out of everything he has left. Though you might want to make him take some classes at a community college instead, or maybe see if Clark can get him an internship at the _Daily Planet_. That boy will do nothing all day every day if you let him."

"Mrs. Kent?" Lex said, surprised. This family did remember that Lex had shot Clark last week, didn't they?

"You weren't expecting me to agree this easily," Mrs. Kent surmised, and Lex quickly demurred.

"I would have abided by whatever decision you made."

"But not before fighting tooth-and-nail to make sure it was the one you wanted," Ms. Kent said. Lex opened his mouth to object, not that he was sure how he could without lying, but she interrupted him before he could. "It's fine Lex. It actually makes me feel a little bit better about my choice."

"I don't want to push my luck here, but why _are_ you letting Conner move in with me?"

"Jonathan and I were good parents to Clark growing up. It was an unusual situation and, even if I wouldn't have traded it for anything, it wasn't easy a lot of the time, but we managed, and much better than most other people would have in our situation, I think," Mrs. Kent said in an apparent non-sequitur.

"Absolutely." It was a non-sequitur that Lex could get behind, though. He went to say more on the subject, but Mrs. Kent silenced him with a gentle chastising look.

"We were good parents, but we weren't perfect. Of course, no parents are perfect, but knowing that doesn't mean you look back at the mistakes you've made without regret. Jonathan and I, we were always so worried about Clark, and what would happen if anyone found out the truth about him. We ended up dictating a lot of his life to him, and we didn't listen as much as we should have." Mrs. Kent fell silent for a moment. She offered Lex another clean pan and he accepted it just as silently, knowing anything he said in that moment would be wrong.

"If I can be completely honest with you for a minute Lex, I think letting Conner live with you is a very bad idea. Trust is something that has to be earned, and while I admit you're on your way – some of your more reactionary stunts this past month aside – you haven't done enough to earn it yet." Lex winced. He should have known his 'pretend to be extra evil plan' was going to come back to bite him in the ass.

"But I do trust Clark and Conner, both to take care of themselves, and I trust their judgement," she continued. "Since they both think this is the right thing to do, I'm willing to stand back, see what happens, and hope that I'm the one proved wrong here."

"Mrs. Kent, if there's anything I can do," Lex began, but she just shook her head.

"Has anyone ever told you that you try to hard? I don't want a big gesture, those are too easy for you. Just be good to my boys. I think we've all had enough of broken hearts for one lifetime, don't you?"

Lex wasn't sure what to say to that. He started to open his mouth a couple of times, but nothing ever seemed to want to come out. Finally he gave up on it altogether, instead silently reaching for the last pot she had just finished washing.

Mrs. Kent, however, didn't let him take it, instead taking the drying towel from him. "I can take it from here. Why don't you go help the boys set up the new stereo?"

"I… alright," he agreed. He started to leave, but when he reached the doorway, Mrs. Kent called out to him.

"I met a boy, not that long ago," Mrs. Kent said, not looking up from her dishes. "Well, I say that, but it must have been ten, fifteen years ago now; time starts to pass so strangely when you get older. Anyways, he was a good boy, but he had trouble doing the right thing sometimes, and had a tendency to fall in with the wrong types of people. It wasn't entirely his fault, his father hadn't done a good job of raising him at all, and his mother… well I had my own thoughts as to what she must have been like, but far be it from me to speak ill of the dead. Now, at the time Clark was still in high school, so taking care of him was my first priority. And while I don't regret making that decision, I do regret that it prevented me from reaching out to that boy like I knew he needed. I really do hope I meet that young man again someday. I like to think that we could be friends now."

Lex just stood in the doorway for a long minute, his throat clogged with emotion. Mrs. Kent didn't once turn to look at him, just running her towel over and over the pot that must have been long since dry. "Thank you, Mrs. Kent," he managed finally.

She turned around, reaching up to hang the pan above the island. "Of course," she said, smiling brightly at him. "And it's Martha, dear."

With that, Lex quickly left, before the ghost of Jonathan actually did show up and offer his support as well.

The family room was a bit of a mess when Lex arrived. Not literally, because two beings with superhuman speed and superhuman strength and one very determined human were able to make quick work of unpacking and placing a TV and an assortment of speakers, but it certainly felt chaotic. Lex watched for a minute or two and came to the conclusion that Perry didn't have the slightest clue what he was doing in trying to wire everything up, and while Clark was attempting to help, he didn't know what to do all that well either. Conner, meanwhile, was sitting cross-legged and cross-armed on the floor in front of the couch sulking because any of his suggestions were ignored on the grounds that Perry was 'a grown man, and more than capable of hooking up a couple of speakers.'

"Perry," Lex said once he had ascertained the situation. "Martha wants you in the kitchen. She needs someone to help her put everything away and make up popcorn, and you're much more familiar with the layout in there than I am. I can take over here if you like."

Perry eyed Lex suspiciously for a moment, before throwing the instructions and the wire he was holding in either hand down in disgust. "Fine. Your twisty mind can probably make better sense of this nonsense anyway."

Lex chose to take that as a compliment.

He began by getting the TV fully functional, allowing Clark and Conner to browse through various Christmas movies while Lex focused on getting everything else set up. And while he would exactly call it difficult, Lex would grant Clark and Perry this, it certainly was complicated. LexCorp didn't currently have any toes in the home entertainment market, to Lex's knowledge, but it might be worth it if they could find a way to simplify all this. Lex would get someone on it next Monday.

By the time he had finished, Martha and Perry had returned from the kitchen and were snuggled up together on the loveseat, while Clark had migrated to the center of the couch, the only other seating in the room, where he was taking up an extraordinary amount of space. The floor was a non-option, because Conner had shifted into a sort of loose-limbed sprawl and there was nowhere left to sit where it wouldn't be highly obvious that Lex was avoiding sitting tpo close to Clark, which would probably be more suspicious than actually sitting too close to Clark would be. And Lex had just promised Martha he would behave himself around Clark too.

After a moment's indecision, Lex sat himself on the far left corner of the couch, doing a remarkable job, he thought, of making it look like he just casually chose to sit there. Clark rolled his eyes – not that Lex saw it because he was very pointedly not looking at Clark, but he could feel it – and slid along the couch until he was pressed up against Lex. Lex wanted to stiffen, to make the point that he certainly wasn't trying to take advantage of anyone's baby boy, but it was really so hard not to lean into the warmth and the strength and the Clark-ness right next to him. Impossible, really. Honestly, Lex even thinking about trying should be considered a valiant effort.

Clark leaned in closer, ostensibly so Lex could hear him speaking in undertone, his breath ghosting across the shell of Lex's ear. "Don't worry, I already told them we're dating." Well, it certainly would have been nice if someone would have told Lex that. Not that Lex was in any way upset to discover this, it was just-

Clark shifted a bit putting his head in the perfect position for Lex to pet his hair. In fact, given the little contented noise Clark made and the way he leaned into Lex's touch, Lex rather suspected this was a deliberate action on Clark's part. What in the world had Lex been complaining about again?

"Merry Christmas, Lex."

Yes, it really was.


End file.
